Superman from India! Spider-Man from Japan!

J. Eric Smith, the operator of the excellent blog portal Indie Albany, wrote a fantastic piece about how the audience to see motion pictures in this day and age have been inundated with superhero films and fantasy pictures, which essentially dwarf any dramas or character-driven films at the box office. Personally, I’d argue that the Oscars still go to films like The King’s Speech, unless Colin Firth takes a super-secret energy pill to cure his stutter.

But it brings me to another thought about superheros and the broadcast media. When the motion picture Captain America: The First Avenger was released to international audiences, the film’s title was changed to The First Avenger because the movie studios thought that any reference to a “Captain America” would be lost on their audiences.

Still, that hasn’t stopped some superhero characters from getting a massive reinterpretation upon their appearance in foreign cinemas.

Work with me here.

What you’re about to see below is a clip from a Hindi film called Dariya-dil. The lead actor in this picture, Govinda, is one of the most beloved and profitable Bollywood stars of all time. His co-star, Kimi Katkar, appeared in several films and is currently rumored to be starring opposite Johnny Depp in a film next year.

According to the synopsis in this blog post, the musical number you see below – “Tu Mera Superman” – is only a dream sequence in a bigger motion picture. “The weathly businessman, Dhaniram (Kader Khan), has two useless, elder, selfish sons, Vijay (Raj Kiran) & Ajay (Shashi Kiran); and the youngest son that he’s proud of, Ravi (Govinda). The two elder sons are uneducated and lazy but want daddy-dearest to cut them some slack, give them money, and excuse their inability to actually do some work in the company. They are so heartless and selfish that they try ways to entrap their own father! If you think that’s sad, even their wives are unexcusable as well. The greedy, corrupted, Income Tax Officer, D.O. Gogi (Shakti Kapoor) tries to trick Dhaniram but only resulted in Gogi being arrested and imprisoned. To take revenge, Gogi’s sister, Dolly (Roshini) and brother, Gulu (Gulshan Grover) both scheme to end Dhanirami and take over his wealth.”

Okay, did you follow any of that? Me neither.

Back to the film clip. Please understand – this film clip has been taken completely out of context from the film. It’s one of those Bollywood musical numbers, and the film is not a superhero flick about the Man of Steel itself. However, it has been ported to YouTube and other locations as “Indian Superman,” as if this is what the moviegoers in Mumbai think constitutes a superhero flick. In this scene, Ravi and his girlfriend enter a dream sequence where they fly and dance and beat up the bad guys.

Unfortunately, the only clip I could find that would link to this blog post was a clip from the funnyordie.com website.

See, even the website Funnyordie.com thinks this is more of a parody than anything else. Yeah, the special effects are less than believable, but this was a dream sequence in a larger motion picture. Gotta put it in its proper context.

Besides, there’s already a popular superhero film series from India. Krrish. No, I’m not going to try to explain the super-powers of Krrish. I think his super-powers are that he can make money for the movie studio.

As for Spider-Man, in 1978 Marvel Comics licensed the webslinger to Toei Studios in Japan, and next thing you know, we’ve got a new origin story for the wall-crawler. In this iteration, according to the Marvel.com website, “motorcycle racer Takuya Yamashiro gain the powers of Spider-Man! With his new powers and the help of Marveller, he transforms into Leopardon in order to defeat Professor Monster and his evil Iron Cross Army.” Yes, Spider-Man now has a robot sidekick named Leopardon. This came from the Marvel.com website.

Are we sure this wasn’t Spider-Man or Ultraman? Suffice it to say, the show didn’t last very long, and was almost completely forgotten. The entire series is now available on Marvel.com’s website, as are episodes of other Marvel television shows like X-Men and Avengers: United They Stand.

I warn you, though… if I find out there’s a French Batman series or an Incredible Hulk movie in Esperanto, we’re going to have a “cometajesus” meeting about this.

Chuck Miller

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Chuck Miller: Writer, Photographer, and the life lessons I learned from Street Academy